‘Boris is not Prime Minister material. The public want a PM who looks like one. They don’t want him to resemble a dishevelled buffoon. Let’s end the silly speculation. Boris is the John Prescott of the Tory Party,’ says the Shipley MP.

‘I have as much chance of becoming PM as Boris. He may have a brain the size of a small country, but PM? No thanks.’

David Cameron told guests at a Tory dinner how he was on the receiving end of the Queen’s waspish sense of humour when he lamely engaged her in small talk during the Olympics. ‘When I told her that it would be up to me to decide whether to shoot down a plane that entered the capital’s airspace without permission during the Games, she replied, “Well, I am flying from City Airport to Balmoral tomorrow, Prime Minister. I hope you know about that...” ’

New Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt appears to have found the perfect formula for a happy marriage with his Chinese wife Lucia. He confided cheerily to a friend: ‘My wife and I are perfectly matched. I’m totally anal and she’s completely chaotic.’ Dog can’t help feeling he is being a little harsh – on Mrs Hunt.

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Poor Anna takes a square bashing

Women Tory MPs are gleefully circulating a weblink to a 1993 edition of ITV’s Celebrity Squares featuring newly promoted Health Minister Anna Soubry, pictured on the show, below. Asked by host Bob Monkhouse ‘How long does it take an experienced eskimo to build an igloo – two hours or four?’ Soubry replied: ‘Four.’ Wrong. Husky-hugging David Cameron would have known it is two.

Working with Nick Clegg is starting to take its toll on Tory Party co-chairman Andrew Feldman. The peer, an Oxford University crony of the PM, describes the Coalition thus: ‘It’s like a marriage. We are sleeping in separate beds and staying together for the sake of the children.’ Sometimes, divorce is the only way.

Hurricane Nad lifts off

After openly defying new Chief Whip Andrew ‘Thrasher’ Mitchell by publicly calling for a ‘Kill Cameron strategy’, Tory MP Nadine Dorries packed her bikini and headed for the beach. But not before triumphantly texting Dog from Heathrow’s departure lounge: ‘Hurricane Nadine is heading for the Caribbean. Do you think they could rename the Cayman Islands Cameron Islands?’ Over to you, Thrasher.

When Lib Dem Ministers Sarah Teather and Paul Burstow first saw the glossy brochure to be handed out to delegates at next week’s party conference in Brighton, they were thrilled. It features giant photos of them with leader Nick Clegg. But now, they will be the laughing stock of the conference – as he sacked them both in the reshuffle.